The Meaningful Man - a one hour special: A chronicle of survival and a call to life, Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" has the power to change people's lives. The book is part memoir, part manifesto, and part discourse on human psychology. Seven decades after it was first published, it continues to inspire readers.
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The Sunday Edition50:53The Meaningful Man (April 2016)
A chronicle of survival and a call to life, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaningcontinues to change people's lives generation after generation. The book is part memoir, part manifesto, and part discourse on human psychology. Written in 1946, after Viktor Frankl survived four Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, Man's Search for Meaning describes how he endured the camps, and how to find meaning in the face of suffering.
Seven decades after it was first published, it continues to inspire readers. Chris Martin, the British rock musician from Coldplay, held it close during some personally challenging times.
Mohamed Fahmy, the Egyptian-born Canadian journalist, discovered it during 400+ days in Cairo's Scorpion prison.
Anna Redsand wrote a biography of Frankl geared for young readers, when she discovered that the book spoke to the adolescents she works with in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Sunday Edition2:41Anna Redsand, Viktor Frankl biographer
Anna Redsand wrote a biography of Frankl geared for young readers.
In this special hour about Man's Search for Meaning, we explore the ongoing resonance of one of the most influential books of the twentieth century.
We meet Viktor Frankl himself, in an interview with Roy Bonisteel of CBC television's Man Alive.
Man Alive: Viktor Frankl
9 years ago
Duration 21:15
A CBC interview with Viktor Frankl from 1979.
We meet Donna Johnson, who visited Frankl's widow, and the room where the book was written; Rob McCormick, who uses the book's message in his work on Indigenous healing; Stephanie Sliekers, who Michael Enright met on a busy Toronto streetcar and for whom Man's Searchfor Meaning has been a cancer survival tool; and Viktor Frankl's biographer, Haddon Klingberg.
Dr. Balfour Mount, the father of palliative care in North America, invited Frankl to Canada for his last visit here, and continues to be influenced – personally and professionally – by his ideas.